shoulders. However, I did the best I could. When Gertrude got
past the hair-ribbon age, and Halsey asked for a scarf-pin and
put on long trousers--and a wonderful help that was to the
darning.--I sent them away to good schools. After that, my
responsibility was chiefly postal, with three months every summer
in which to replenish their wardrobes, look over their lists of
acquaintances, and generally to take my foster-motherhood out of
its nine months' retirement in camphor.

I missed the summers with them when, somewhat later, at boarding-
school and college, the children spent much of their vacations
with friends. Gradually I found that my name signed to a check
was even more welcome than when signed to a letter, though I
wrote them at stated intervals. But when Halsey had finished
his electrical course and Gertrude her boarding-school, and both
came home to stay, things were suddenly changed. The winter
Gertrude came out was nothing but a succession of sitting up late
at night to bring her home from things, taking her to the
dressmakers between naps the next day, and discouraging
ineligible youths with either more money than brains, or more
brains than money. Also, I acquired a great many things: to say
lingerie for under-garments, "frocks" and "gowns" instead of
dresses, and that beardless sophomores are not college boys, but
college men. Halsey required less personal supervision, and as
they both got their mother's fortune that winter, my
responsibility became purely moral. Halsey bought a car, of
course, and I learned how to tie over my bonnet a gray baize
veil, and, after a time, never to stop to look at the dogs one
has run down. People are apt to be so unpleasant about their
dogs.